Anne Morrow Lindbergh
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Anne Morrow Lindbergh
A talented author and aviator in her own right, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (born 1906) was also known as the wife of the famous flyer Charles A. Lindbergh.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was born in Englewood, New Jersey, on June 22, 1906, one of the four children of Dwight Whitney and Elizabeth Reeve (Cutter) Morrow. Her father, the future ambassador to Mexico and from 1930 to 1931 the Republican senator from New Jersey, was a lawyer and partner in J.P. Morgan & Company before entering public service. Her mother, an educator and acting president of Smith College in 1939-1940, was also a poet.
A shy, quiet child, from an early age Anne Morrow wrote plays and discovered through writing her own personal connection with the world. In 1924 she entered Smith College, where she majored in English. She graduated with prizes in creative and expository writing in 1928, the same year one of her poems appeared in Scribner's Magazine.
Marriage to Lindbergh
In December 1927, at an official reception at the United States Embassy in Mexico where her father was serving as American ambassador, Anne had met the young aviator and international hero Charles A. Lindbergh. Publicly adulated for his 1927 transatlantic solo flight from New York to Paris in The Spirit of St. Louis, "the Lone Eagle" was considered America's most eligible bachelor. Anne Morrow was thought one of the luckiest women in the country when on May 27, 1929, the two were married in Englewood, New Jersey. Ironically, these two intensely private people were spotlighted in the press for most of their adult lives.
As the wife of the world's most famous aviator, Anne accompanied Charles on many goodwill tours and business trips promoting aviation. She even learned to fly herself, in 1930 becoming the first woman to obtain a glider pilot's license. In 1934, she was awarded the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society, the first woman so honored.
Kidnapping
On June 22, 1930, at the age of 24, Anne gave birth to the couple's first child, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. In March 1932 the young Charles was kidnapped from the family's 400-acre home near Hopewell, New Jersey. The case of the missing "Lindbergh Baby" became the most famous kidnapping in the country's history. The publicity was enormous and the hunt for the child and the abductor intense. When the child's dead body was found in the woods near the small New Jersey town on May 12, approximately two months after the ordeal had begun, the country mourned with the parents. Law enforcement agencies vowed to find the murderer and bring him to justice. In September 1934, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a carpenter, was arrested as a suspect. He was later tried, convicted, and executed, although subsequent investigation has called that conviction into question.
Fearing for the safety of their second child, Jon Morrow Lindbergh, born on August 16, 1932, and eager to escape the sensationalism and the publicity surrounding the kidnapping and the trial, Anne and her family sailed secretly to England on Dec. 21, 1935, where they rented a cottage in Sevenoaks, Kent.
During this period, Anne re-established the literary career she had put on hold after marriage. In 1934 she published, in National Geographic Magazine, "Flying Around the North Atlantic, " a narrative of one of her expeditions with her husband in search of transatlantic airline routes. Harcourt published her first book, North to the Orient, in 1935; it was an account of their 1931 Arctic-Asian journey. Her work was warmly appreciated by a reading public eager to learn what they could about the hero worshipped around the world and how this famous couple reacted to the tragedy of their murdered child. In the Saturday Review Glendy Culligan wrote, "The letters and diaries achieve both spontaneity and art, thanks in part to her style, in part to a built-in plot and a soul-searching heroine worthy of a Bronte novel."
The years leading up to World War II were spent by the Lindberghs in semi-seclusion on a four-acre islet near Port-Blanc, France. The United States military had enlisted Charles to perform occasional aviation intelligence missions to assess the air strength of the European powers. Lindbergh concluded that Nazi Germany's air power was overwhelmingly superior to that of the other countries and recommended appeasement of Germany's expansion. On a visit to Germany in 1938, Lindbergh was awarded the Service Cross of the Order of the German Eagle by Marshal Hermann Goring.
This decoration and expressions of pro-Nazi feelings made Lindbergh an increasingly unpopular figure in the United States. His advocacy of a strict isolationist policy ran counter to public feeling, and in 1940, after having resettled her family in the United States, Anne published The Wave of the Future. The book was intended to explain Lindbergh's position and to help restore her husband's reputation in the eyes of the American people. During the war, family was a strong pull in Anne's life. Between 1937 and 1945 she gave birth to four more children: Land, Anne, Scott, and Reeve. Her aviator husband died in 1974.
With the end of the war, Anne continued to write, publishing in 1955 Gift from the Sea, a series of autobiographical essays which was on the nonfiction best-seller list for weeks. A book of poems, Unicorn and other Poems, 1935-1955, came out in 1956. A novel, Dearly Beloved: A Theme and Variations, was published in 1962. By the early 1970s she had begun to edit and publish her voluminous letters and diaries. After Bring Me a Unicorn in 1972, she published four more volumes: Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead (1973); Locked Rooms and Open Doors (1974); The Flower and the Nettle (1976); and War Within and Without (1980). Altogether, two thousand pages of Anne's diaries and letters have been published. As one critic has observed, "Anne's works are unified by one theme, or rather one dilemma, namely, that 'eternal struggle' of what 'I must be for Charles and what I must be for myself."'
Further Reading
Anne Morrow Lindbergh's best known works include Gift from the Sea (1955) and Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh 1929-1932 (1973). Books commenting on her life include Dorothy Herrmann, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, A Gift for Life (1992); Judy Lomas, Women of the Air (1987); Joyce Milton, Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1993); and David Kirk Vaughan, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1988).
Additional Sources
McHenry, Robert (ed.), "Lindbergh, Anne Spencer Morrow, " Her Heritage: A Biographical Encyclopedia of Famous American Women.
Chadwick, Roxane, Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Pilot and Poet, Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing Co., 1987.
Fisher, Jim, The Lindbergh Case, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994, 1987.
Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature:
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Works by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
(1906-2001)
| 1935 | North to the Orient. The first of the author's books is an account of her flight with her husband, Charles Lindbergh, from New York to China and Japan in 1931. It is enthusiastically received and praised for its stylish prose and lyricism. |
| 1938 | Listen! The Wind. Lindbergh's second book--an account of the 1933 survey flights made with her husband across the Atlantic, exploring possible commercial air routes--solidifies her reputation as an impressive prose stylist and writer of distinction, able to transform a technical account into literature. |
| 1940 | The Wave of the Future. An argument for democratic reforms and for America to stay out of the European war. Praised for its lyrical style, the book is condemned by some as a plea to appease the totalitarian powers. |
| 1944 | Steep Ascent. Lindbergh's introspective first novel has a strong autobiographical basis and concerns a perilous flight over the Alps made by an American woman and her British husband, a pilot. |
| 1955 | Gift from the Sea. Lindbergh's series of personal essays on love and marriage is considered an important early feminist work that challenges the concept of women defined solely by their role as wives and mothers. Lindbergh would continue her meditations in her only volume of poetry, The Unicorn (1956). |
| 1973 | Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead. The second volume of Lindbergh's diaries and letters recounts the most highly publicized incidents of her life: marriage to celebrated aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh and the abduction and murder of their infant son. Lindbergh's writing skill, coupled with the drama of her story, produces a bestseller. |
Quotes By:
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Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Quotes:
"If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments."
"America, which has the most glorious present still existing in the world today, hardly stops to enjoy it, in her insatiable appetite for the future."
"The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it."
"To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own."
"There are no signposts in the sky to show a man has passed that way before. There are no channels marked. The flier breaks each second into new uncharted seas."
"One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay in kind somewhere else in life."
See more famous quotes by
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Anne Morrow Lindbergh
| Anne Morrow Lindbergh | |
|---|---|
 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1918 |
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| Born | Anne Spencer Morrow June 22, 1906 Englewood, New Jersey |
| Died | February 7, 2001 (aged 94) Passumpsic, Vermont |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Smith College |
| Occupation | Author, Aviator |
| Spouse | Charles Lindbergh |
| Children | Charles Augustus, Jr. (d. 1932) Jon Lindbergh Land Lindbergh Anne Lindbergh (d. 1993) Scott Lindbergh Reeve Lindbergh[1] |
| Parents | Dwight Whitney Morrow Elizabeth Cutter Morrow |
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (née Anne Spencer Morrow; June 22, 1906 – February 7, 2001) was an American author, aviator, and the spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh.[2] She was an acclaimed author whose books and articles spanned the genres of poetry to non-fiction, touching upon topics as diverse as youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and contentment, as well as the role of women in the 20th Century.[3] Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea stands as a seminal work in feminist[clarification needed] literature.[4]
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Contents
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Early life
Anne Spencer Morrow was born on June 22, 1906 in Englewood, New Jersey.[5] Her father was Dwight W. Morrow, a partner in J.P. Morgan & Co., who became United States Ambassador to Mexico and United States Senator from New Jersey. Her mother was Elizabeth Reeve Cutter Morrow, a poet and teacher, who was active in women's education,[1] and served as acting president of her alma mater Smith College.[2] Anne was the second of four children; her siblings were Elisabeth Reeve, Dwight, Jr., and Constance. The children were raised in a household that fostered achievement. Every night, Anne's mother would read to her children for an hour. The children quickly learned to read and write, began reading to themselves, and writing poetry and diaries. Anne would later benefit from this routine, eventually publishing her later diaries to critical acclaim.[6]
After graduating from The Chapin School in New York City in 1924, Anne attended Smith College, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1928.[2][7] She received the Elizabeth Montagu Prize for her essay on women of the eighteenth century and Madame d'Houdetot, and the Mary Augusta Jordan Literary Prize for her fictional piece entitled "Lida Was Beautiful".[8]
Marriage and family
Anne and Charles Lindbergh met on December 21, 1927 in Mexico City.[9] Dwight Morrow—Lindbergh's financial adviser at J.P. Morgan and Co.—invited Lindbergh to Mexico in order to advance good relations between that country and the United States.[10] At the time, Anne Morrow was a shy 21-year-old senior at Smith College. Charles Lindbergh was a courageous aviator whose solo flight across the Atlantic made him a hero of mythic proportions and the most famous man in the world.[7] But the sight of the boyish aviator, who was staying with the Morrows, tugged at Anne's heartstrings. She would later write in her diary:
| “ | He is taller than anyone else—you see his head in a moving crowd and you notice his glance, where it turns, as though it were keener, clearer, and brighter than anyone else's, lit with a more intense fire. ... What could I say to this boy? Anything I might say would be trivial and superficial, like pink frosting flowers. I felt the whole world before this to be frivolous, superficial, ephemeral.[9] | ” |
Anne Morrow and Charles Lindbergh were married in a private ceremony on May 27, 1929 at the home of her parents in Englewood, New Jersey.[11]
That year, Anne flew solo for the first time, and in 1930 became the first American woman to earn a first class glider pilot's license. In the 1930s, Anne and Charles together explored and charted air routes between continents.[12] The Lindberghs were the first to fly from Africa to South America, and explored polar air routes from North America to Asia and Europe.[13]
Their first child, Charles Jr, was born on Anne's 24th birthday, June 22, 1930.
Kidnapping
In an incident widely known as the "Lindbergh kidnapping", the Lindberghs' first child, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., was kidnapped at 20 months of age from their home in East Amwell, New Jersey outside Hopewell on March 1, 1932.[a] After a massive investigation, a baby's body, presumed to be that of Charles Lindbergh Jr., was discovered the following May 12, some four miles (6 km) from the Lindberghs' home, at the summit of a hill on the Hopewell-Mt. Rose Highway.[15]
Exile
The frenzied press attention paid to the Lindberghs, particularly after the kidnapping of their son and later the trial, conviction and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, prompted Charles and Anne to move first to England, to a house called Long Barn owned by Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, and later to the small island of Illiec, off the coast of Brittany in France.[16]
While in Europe, the Lindberghs came to advocate isolationist views that led to their fall from grace in the eyes of many. In the late 1930s, the U.S. Air Attaché in Berlin invited Charles Lindbergh to inspect the rising power of Nazi Germany's Air Force. Impressed by German technology and their apparent number of aircraft, as well as influenced by the staggering number of deaths from World War I, Lindbergh opposed U.S. entry into the impending European conflict. Anne wrote a book titled The Wave of the Future, arguing that something resembling fascism was the unfortunate "wave of the future", echoing authors such as Lawrence Dennis and later James Burnham.[17]
Return to the US
In 1938, the Lindberghs moved back to the United States. Due to his outspoken beliefs about a future war that would envelop their homeland, the antiwar America First Committee quickly adopted Charles Lindbergh as their leader in 1940.[18] After the attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war, the committee disbanded, and Charles pressed to become involved in the military, eventually finding a way to enter combat, albeit as a civilian.[19][20]
Charles and Anne Lindbergh had five more children: sons Jon, Land and Scott, and daughters Anne and Reeve.
Later life
After the war, Anne and Charles wrote books that rebuilt the reputations they had gained and lost before World War II. The publication of Gift from the Sea in 1955 earned her place as "one of the leading advocates of the nascent environmental movement" and became a national best seller.[21]
Over the course of their 45-year marriage, Charles and Anne lived in New Jersey, New York, England, France, Maine, Michigan, Connecticut, Switzerland, and Hawaii. Charles died on Maui in 1974. Though (typically) he never showed it, Charles was hurt by Anne's three-year affair in the early 1950s with her personal doctor.[22]
According to Rudolf Schröck, author of Das Doppelleben des Charles A. Lindbergh (Heyne Verlag, 2005), from 1957 until his death in 1974, Charles had an affair with Brigitte Hesshaimer, a Bavarian woman 24 years his junior, that produced three children, whom he supported financially. In 2003, a spokeman for the Hesshaimer family indicated that DNA tests conducted by the University of Munich proved that Lindbergh fathered the three children. According to Schröck, Charles also had sexual relationships with Brigitte's sister Marietta, who bore him two sons, and with his former private secretary, who bore him two more children.[23][24]
After suffering a series of strokes in the early 1990s, which left her confused and disabled, Anne continued to live in her home in Connecticut with the assistance of round-the-clock caregivers. During a visit to her daughter Reeve's family in 1999, she came down with pneumonia, after which she went to live near Reeve in a small home built on Reeve's Vermont farm, where Anne died in 2001 at the age of 94 from another stroke. Reeve Lindbergh's book, No More Words tells the story of her mother's last years.[25]
Honors and awards
Anne received numerous honors and awards throughout her life in recognition of her contributions to both literature and aviation. In 1933, she received the U.S. Flag Association Cross of Honor for having taken part in surveying transatlantic air routes. The following year, she was awarded the Hubbard Medal by the National Geographic Society for having completed 40,000 miles (64,000 km) of exploratory flying with her husband Charles Lindbergh—a feat that took them to five continents. In 1993, Women in Aerospace presented her with an Aerospace Explorer Award in recognition of her achievements in, and contributions to, the aerospace field.[1][11] She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame (1979), the National Women's Hall of Fame (1996), the Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey, and the International Women in Aviation Pioneer Hall of Fame (1999).[1]
Her first book, North to the Orient (1935) won one of the inaugural National Book Awards: the Most Distinguished General Nonfiction of 1935, voted by the American Booksellers Association.[26][27] Her second book Listen! The Wind (1938) won the same award in its fourth year.[28] after the Nonfiction category had subsumed Biography. She received the Christopher Award for War Within and Without, the last installment of her published diaries.[29]
In addition to being the recipient of honorary Masters and Doctor of Letters degrees from her alma mater Smith College (1935 and 1970), Anne also received honorary degrees from Amherst College (1939), the University of Rochester (1939), Middlebury College (1976), and Gustavus Adolphus College (1985).
Books by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- North to the Orient. Orlando, Florida: Mariner Books, 1996, First edition 1935. ISBN 978-0-15-667140-8.
- Listen! The Wind. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1990, First edition 1938.
- The Wave of the Future: A Confession of Faith. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940.
- The Steep Ascent. New York: Dell, 1956, First edition, 1944.
- Gift from the Sea New York: Pantheon, 1991, First edition 1955. ISBN 978-0-679-73241-9.
- The Unicorn and other Poems 1935-1955. New York: Pantheon, 1993, First edition 1956. ISBN 978-0-679-42540-3.
- Dearly Beloved Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2003, First edition 1962. ISBN 978-1-55652-490-5.
- Earth Shine. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1969.
- Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1922-1928. Orlando, Florida: Mariner Books, 1973, First edition 1971. ISBN 978-0-15-614164-2.
- Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead: Diaries And Letters Of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1929-1932. Orlando, Florida: Mariner Books, 1993, First edition 1973. ISBN 978-0-15-642183-6.
- Locked Rooms and Open Doors: Diaries And Letters Of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1933-1935. Orlando, Florida: Mariner Books, 1993, First edition 1974. ISBN 978-0-15-652956-3.
- The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries And Letters Of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1936-1939. Orlando, Florida: Mariner Books, 1994, First edition 1976. ISBN 978-0-15-631942-3.
- War Without and Within: Diaries And Letters Of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1939-1944. Orlando, Florida: Mariner Books, 1995, First edition 1980. ISBN 978-0-15-694703-9.
Notes
- ^ So while the world's attention was focused on Hopewell, from which the first press dispatches emanated about the kidnapping, The Hunterdon County Democrat made sure its readers knew that the new home of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was in East Amwell Township Hunterdon County.[14]
References
- Citations
- ^ a b c d "Anne Morrow Lindbergh Biography." Lindbergh Foundation. Retrieved: November 17, 2011.
- ^ a b c "Anne Morrow Lindbergh." Biography.com." Retrieved: November 17, 2011.
- ^ Plunket, Robert. "The lives they lived: Anne Morrow Lindbergh, b. 1906; The Heroine." The New York Times, December 30, 2001. Retrieved: November 20, 2011.
- ^ Hertog 2000, p. 433.
- ^ Hertog 2000, p. 50.
- ^ Hertog 2000, p. 61.
- ^ a b Pace, Eric. "Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 94, Dies; Champion of Flight and Women's Concerns." The New York Times, February 8, 2001. Retrieved: November 17, 2011.
- ^ Hertog 2000, p. 74.
- ^ a b Lindbergh 1971, p. 118.
- ^ Jennings and Brewster p. 420.
- ^ a b "Anne Morrow Lindbergh Biography Timeline." Charles Lindbergh. Retrieved: November 17, 2011.
- ^ Lindbergh 1935, pp. 57–59.
- ^ Hertog 2000, p. 141.
- ^ Gill, Barbara. "Lindbergh kidnapping rocked the world 50 years ago." The Hunterdon County Democrat, 1981.
- ^ Lyman, Lauren D. "Press Calls For Action: Hopes the Public Will Be Roused to Wipe Out a 'National Disgrace'." The New York Times, December 24, 1935, p. 1.
- ^ Winters 2006, p. 193.
- ^ Lindbergh 1976, p. 224.
- ^ Jennings and Brewster 1998, p. 420.
- ^ "Charles Lindbergh in Combat, 1944." EyeWitness to History, 2006. Retrieved: July 20, 2009.
- ^ Mersky 1983, p. 93.
- ^ "Anne Morrow Lindbergh." PBS. Retrieved: November 17, 2011.
- ^ Connelly, Sherryl. "Anne Morrow Lindbergh emerges from Lindy's shadow in new biography" New York Daily News, December 12, 1999. Retrieved: November 21, 2011.
- ^ Schröck, Rudolf. "The Lone Eagle’s Clandestine Nests: Charles Lindbergh’s German secrets." The Atlantic Times, June 2005. Retrieved: September 16, 2010.
- ^ "DNA Proves Lindbergh Led a Double Life" The New York Times, November 29, 2003. Retrieved: November 21, 2011.
- ^ Lindbergh, Reeve 2002, p. 175.
- ^ "Books and Authors", The New York Times, 1936-04-12, page BR12. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2007).
- ^ "Lewis is Scornful of Radio Culture: ...", The New York Times, 1936-05-12, page 25. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2007).
- ^ "Book About Plants Receives Award: Dr. Fairchild's 'Garden' Work Cited by Booksellers", The New York Times 1939-02-15, page 20. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2007).
- ^ "Anne Morrow Lindbergh." The American Experience: Lindbergh PBS, 2009. Retrieved: November 20, 2011.
- Bibliography of cited works
- Berg, A. Scott. Lindbergh. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1998. ISBN 0-399-14449-8.
- Hertog, Susan Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life. New York: Anchor, 2000. ISBN 978-0-385-72007-6.
- Jennings, Peter and Todd Brewster. The Century. New York: Doubleday, 1998. ISBN 0-385-48327-9.
- Lindbergh, Reeve. No More Words: A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. ISBN 0-7432-0314-3.
- Milton, Joyce. Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-016503-0.
- Mersky, Peter B. U.S. Marine Corps Aviation – 1912 to the Present. Annapolis, Maryland: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1983. ISBN 0-933852-39-8.
- Mosley, Leonard. Lindbergh: A Biography. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1976. ISBN 0-395-09578-3.
- Winters, Kathleen. Anne Morrow Lindbergh: First Lady of the Air. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ISBN 1-4039-6932-9.
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Copyrights:
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature
The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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